UWE Bristol Engineering showcase 2015

Max Floyd Noronha
MEng Aerospace Systems Engineering
Project Supervisor
Dr. Pritesh Narayan
Design and Development of an Android application to automate the
collection of Flight Mode Data
INTRODUCTION
This project focuses around the android
built smartphones in the design and
development of an android application
to automate flight data acquisition in
order to calculate the various dynamic
flight modes of an aircraft in flight.
As part of the ‘Flight Mechanics B’
assignment in year 3 (Bachelors), the
task was to monitor and record the
flight data in-flight using flight test
worksheets in order to manually
calculate the dynamic flight modes of
an aircraft, i.e. Roll mode, Phugoid
Mode, etc., to eventually determine the
dynamic stability of the aircraft. This
project was taken up in order to
simplify the process of flight mode
calculation through the use of
smartphone technology. This involves
making use of java programming
software to create an android
application which enables the user to
automatically calculate the various
dynamic flight modes by a click of a
button. This not only adheres to the
safety requirements in-flight but also
eliminates the need for the pilot to
manually record the data allowing the
pilot to concentrate on flying the
aircraft.
RESEARCH
This project’s research investigates the different sensors
on-board the smartphones which could aid with the
relevant collection of the flight data as well as how
sensor fusion and filtering techniques can affect the
acquisition of the raw flight data.
Which sensors included in most Smartphones can be
used to simulate the dynamic flight modes?
The various sensors included in smartphone devices
need to be investigated in order to determine which
flight modes can be calculated via smartphone
technology. Smartphone device have some limitations
in terms of calculating airspeed data. This will be
investigated to determine cost-effective solutions to
counter this issue. Different sensors provide different
forms of data, hence investigation into which data form
would be useful for this project in order to get the final
output for each flight mode will also be conducted.
Can Sensor Fusion be implemented to improve fight
data acquisition?
Investigation will have to be conducted on sensor fusion
methodologies to fuse the data acquired from the
independent sensors to improve the accuracy of the
flight raw flight data to further increase the accuracy of
the output. Filtering techniques will also be investigated
in order to reduce the amount of background
interference affecting the flight data
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
To summarise the tests conducted, similar
instances were encountered where the device did
not measure all the acceleration forces to carry
out the computations for output, which led to the
conclusion that the accelerometer’s sensitivity was
too low. In some tests, vibration influenced a key
role in interfering with the data such as in the
aircraft and with the robot arm, hence further
investigation on how to filter out these vibrations
via a band-stop filter will have to be carried out.
Through the multiple testing equipment used to
test and validate the android application, a
number of issues were discovered which brought
about the opportunity to address them and
improve the functionality of the application. After
implementing the required adjustments to the
application’s program code, it can be concluded
that if the test in an actual aircraft was to be
repeated, the outputs computed would be more
reliable and accurate.
Amplitude (°)
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
-10
Vibration Test Results
1
13
25
37
49
61
73
85
97
109
121
133
145
157
169
181
193
205
217
229
241
253
Time (ms)
FUTURE WORK
• Improve accelerometer’s sensitivity
• Employ filtering techniques to attenuate unwanted
vibrations
• Improve flight data acquisition by fusing
accelerometer and gyroscope sensors
• Integration a anemometer with the Flight recorder
to obtain airspeed data
Y
X
Project summary
This project was aimed to determine the dynamic
stability of an aircraft through the use of smartphone
technology by designing and developing an android
application that was capable of automating the
acquisition of raw flight data using the smartphone’s
sensors. Extensive research was carried out
investigating the sensors included within the
smartphone devices so as to determine which
dynamic flight modes can be determined through
smartphone technology. Additionally, to improve the
quality of the data, investigation on various sensor
fusion methodologies and filtering techniques was
conducted.
Project Objectives
The aim of this project is to determine an aircrafts’
dynamic stability when it experiences a disturbance
in the air. This project looks in to the design and
development of an android application which can
automate the acquisition of raw flight data through
the use of smartphone sensors and subsequently
calculate the various dynamic aircraft flight modes.
Project Conclusion
Due to multiple issues encountered relating to the
application not properly computing the output for
the flight modes, the program will have to be delved
into more deeply on how to increase the
accelerometer’s sensitivity and improve the
functionality of the application to produce more
reliable and accurate results. Also by using a bandstop
filter, the quality of the flight data acquired can
be greatly increased by blocking out the unnecessary
vibration frequencies. From the observations and
analysis made during the testing phase, it can be
concluded that the android application developed
thus far requires further work to enable improved
functionality is diverse environments.